


bons présages: the nice and accurate prophecies of fantine, witch

by glitterforplaster (ineffableangel)



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Fallen Angels, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:52:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffableangel/pseuds/glitterforplaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(good omens au)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. snake skin in my tracks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Slytherout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherout/gifts).



IN THE BEGINNING

 

It was not a dark and stormy night, at least, not yet, because the sky was only just beginning its bedtime routine and rain had been invented no more than approximately three minutes ago. Grantaire was, so far, enjoying it. It made the horizon look like a child’s watercolor painting. He was cold-blooded by nature, and the rain sliding off his scales didn’t bother him in the slightest, but he couldn’t say the same of his companion; the angel tucked his wings in above his head, trying to keep himself dry, but the rain ran in rivets down his golden feathers nonetheless, and he shivered. Thunder shattered overhead.

“Big _fusssssss_ ,” Grantaire remarked, “over something so trivial.”

“Sorry?” the angel said politely, appearing not to have heard. Grantaire wasn’t surprised; among the skill set of a serpent, shouting to accommodate rainstorms was low on the list. A moment passed, and then the angel murmured, mostly to himself, “That must have been a Very Bad Thing they did, to deserve all this, a Very Bad Thing indeed.”

“Yes, well,” Grantaire said, bored. “I wouldn’t have had a hand in it otherwise. But Bad is relative, and I’m not so sure they deserve it, after all. Seems suspicious to me, planting the tree there in plain sight and saying, Don’t touch, as if they weren’t going to touch it. A bit cruel, isn’t it? Like it’s all one great test. I suppose they’ve failed it now.” He paused. “Perhaps Good is relative, too.”

The angel, whose name was Enjolras, shook his head. “It shouldn’t be. Ah, you’re a demon, I don’t expect you to understand the ways of the light.”

Grantaire wanted to grin at that — he felt he rather understood a lot about light, standing next to a golden servant of God — but, being a serpent and lacking the proper muscles to do so, the movement didn’t come. This was when he decided he no longer liked being a snake in the grass. What was the use of all this hissing and slithering and tempting if you couldn’t look smug about it afterwards? The humans could look smug, if they so wished, and guilty and frightened and all those, though at the moment it seemed to be the only thing they had going for them. Grantaire willed himself into a new form, one with roughly three hundred and sixty seven less vertebrae. The angel beside him started slightly at the change, but made no comment.

They walked together, in the rain, the angel and the demon, their steps accidentally in sync. If anyone would have cared to listen, though of course no one else was about, they might have heard voices, and wondered why any angel would willingly converse with the likes of this particular demon.

A dim, orange glow flickered to life outside the edges of the gate, in the encampment of bushes where God’s creations waited out the storm, and hoped beyond hope that they would be forgiven.

Grantaire recalled something quite suddenly, a hazy memory of an important object, gripped tightly in hands seemingly too soft to have seen war. “Whatever happened to that sword of yours?”

If an angel could look shifty, Enjolras would have. “The, ah, flaming one?”

“That’s the one.”

“It’s... precisely where it should be.”

“Lost it, have we?”

“No, no, I... Well, if you must know, I gave it away.”

Grantaire glanced again at the distant orange glow. He pondered for a moment the political and moral resonance of such an action, and then found he didn’t much care either way. “Giving up what’s yours to help those poor sods that probably won’t survive another day. You feel that’s accomplished something, do you?”

“Yes,” Enjolras said fiercely. “Of course. They’ll be on their own out there, and they can’t return, not after what they did, what you taught them to do, so I— I gave them a gift. They needed it more than I.” He lifted his chin, and it wasn’t haughty, because angels were forbidden to be anything as sinful as proud— but if they were, this would have been. “That, demon, is the true meaning of Goodness. Take note.”

Grantaire arched his eyebrows— pleased he can do that once more, liking this rough human shape more than he’d ever admit— and asked, just to clarify, “Note taken. But is Good the same as Right?”

Enjolras stopped walking.

Grantaire could see the gears grinding to a halt in his head, the moral compass collapsing in on itself, the glorious event horizon of Doubt fast approaching the way it always did, sooner or later. He’d experienced it himself, eons ago, or perhaps it had been yesterday, or tomorrow; time was difficult when you were a wobble of celestial light, and even more so when you had ceased to be one. He relished witnessing it in someone else. There was a worried curve to Enjolras’ mouth that he quite enjoyed.

“It always rocks the boat, doing the Right thing,” Grantaire said, to break the silence. “The thing is, I keep wondering if maybe the apple wasn’t the Right thing as well. Funny, if after all this, I’d done Good, and you’d done Bad. Absolutely roaring hilarious.”

“I don’t see how,” said Enjolras.

Grantaire grinned. “No. I suppose you wouldn’t.”

They left the subject at that, but Grantaire was sure — more sure than he was of anything, which, as it turned out, wasn’t all that sure, at all — that they would revisit it soon.


	2. drowning and drowning and drowning into deep doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been so long since i even touched this series, oops. i'm throwing together whatever i have, but please don't hold your breath. i've been distant from the les mis fandom for some time now, and i can't promise that this series will ever see the end i planned for it. sorry. that said, i hope you enjoy whatever pieces i manage to share.
> 
> title from william beckett's "compromising me."

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

 

Grantaire was not what you might call a _traditional_ demon; he generally scored convention, chaos, and multi-pointed gardening tools. Instead, he enjoyed new age philosophy, low-level world-wide irritation, and cravats. He spoke little, blinked even less, and had a mouth like a guillotine always waiting to come down.

As the years went on, he’d found it more and more difficult to change form. He had a few theories on the matter: a) the increasing number of humans he interacted with on a day to day basis was throwing him off, b) he hadn’t been home to visit Big Daddy Satan in more than a millennia, or c) the Garden of Eden had been more full of creational energy than the entire universe was of late, and he was stuck like this. Either way, he’d been in the same form for a decade or two, and it was really growing on him. Possibly literally growing on him.

Grantaire was entirely untraditional in one last but most important aspect: he had not meant to fall. He hadn’t planned it, or anything. He had just drunk a bit too much that night, drunk until the Right thing seemed relative, and the Wrong much more fun. A lot of things seemed different, he’d found, glimpsed through the bottom of a bottle. His grace had swung heavy around his throat, a weight he’d realized wasn’t worth the trouble of choking. Its chain had tightened, whispering of sacrifice and holiness, and he’d thought, then, of the terrible consequences that came with good intentions. Abruptly, it had seemed, his grace was a noose, and he didn’t like the idea of hanging come morning— not even for the ineffable design.

On the whole, it had been a much less dramatic affair than he’d expected. One moment his faith was absolute, beating frantically beneath his ribs like so many frightened birds, the only heart he’d ever known, and the next it was cupped in his palm, dying. He’d felt no different.

It was surprisingly easy to walk away from paradise, to forget that there had ever been a decent inclination behind his temples. This whole angel business, he mused, was really sort of silly now that he thought about it, so he had slipped away without a single backward glance, content to wander until something new and fascinating presented itself for his amusement.

Then there had been that Javert fellow later on, and that had been quite the mess. Grantaire had gone more quietly than that, and long before, unnoticed by his siblings; he’d joined them in Hell mostly because he’d had nothing else lined up at the time. The universe became very tiring very quickly when you had all of eternity to explore it. Only now, seventy-thousand and three lifetimes and a galaxy later, did he realize his mistake. Only now did he understand that you should never choose a side until you knew it was going to win, in the end. If there was an end. So far, he had not found it.

When angels fall, some scholar had said, they fall in pieces, because once they had looked upon the face of God and seen forgiveness for all their sins, and now they never would again. This time, the sin was too great, and the only remaining option was to keep on. Freedom was a rope around your throat, like grace, like good intentions, and love is what kept it from killing you.

At the moment, Grantaire was walking toward a city square he’d come to know well. He prefered walking to anything else, as it allowed him to get someplace without having to put down his drink. It wasn’t long before he spotted his rendezvous; it was difficult to miss him, in that ridiculous red vest he insisted on. Normally, Grantaire might laugh, but today, in the sun, it makes him look like a flame, and Grantaire appreciated the joke in silence. He sat beside Enjolras on the rim of the fountain.

“Hello, _ange_ ,” he said, mocking. “You’re looking fiery as always.”

Enjolras let the nickname slide, just this once, as he had for the last three millennia. “You’re late,” he said.

“Only by a few minutes.”

“A few minutes could make all the difference in our current situation.”

“Really, dear, lighten up. You’d think it were the end of the world.”

Enjolras smiled faintly at that, a smile that had brought down civilizations in former centuries, and yet now went unnoticed in the afternoon Parisian crowd. “We have much to go over, and little time to do so, thanks to your forgetfulness. Armageddon is not going to wait for you to catch up, Grantaire.”

Grantaire shrugged. “Ah, but my pocket watch is broken.”

“Oh, please. You have never, not once in your absurdly long existence, purchased a pocket watch.”

“I didn’t say I _payed_ for it,” said Grantaire, and grinned again. “I said it was _broken_.” He stood, then, brushing dirt from his trousers, though tragically his boots cannot be helped. “Shall we do lunch?” he asked cheerfully, the rest of their conversation put on indefinite hold with the extension of a single hand.

Enjolras took it, and allowed himself to be pulled up into the noise and light of his beloved city, but he certainly did not allow himself to notice how warm and calloused Grantaire’s palm is, slotted into the grip of his own, nor how his fingertips brush knuckles that are covered in ink, or perhaps blood, and he was definitely _not_ disappointed when Grantaire let go. Because that would be silly. Angels were not silly.

They wandered through the crowds, slipping into side streets and slim alleyways, shouldering through the press of buildings so close that the leaves and vines that spill over the balconies almost touch. They breathed in age and history the decay of a once-beautiful mistress whose people now are starving on their feet. Grantaire’s heart hurt just to look at them, so he didn’t, and, selfishly, looked at Enjolras instead; nothing Good ever came of having a heart, although he supposed that was the point.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras asked after a while.

“Yes?”

“Have you any idea where we’re going?”

Grantaire paused, glanced around, opened his mouth, closed it again, and said: “No.”

“Ah,” Enjolras said, and they stood in the street for a moment, dust settling around them. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “we could try the Musain?”

  
  


 

*

  
  


 

Enjolras spoke in such a way that commanded attention. If he were to whisper, those around him would unconsciously lean forward to hear him. He spoke of politics more often than not; of the local businesses, of the rich and the poor, of the injustice of the courts, of student loans and freedoms and the responsibilities of the people to their fellows. He didn’t really have to plan his rallies— people just sort of showed up, gravitating towards him as planets towards a sun, suddenly struck with righteous passion and an urge to join in the fight. If he were being totally honest with himself, which he hardly ever was, the whole interest in mortal politics had begun long before the Arrangement. Perhaps it had really started with Javert’s falling. It wasn’t that he’d particularly listened to the murmured unrest growing in Heaven, but it had been difficult to ignore at the time, and crept into his skin like spilled ink, darkening stains that wouldn’t come out no matter how hard he tried. Doubts like that... Once they were there, you couldn’t unthink them.

When it came right down to it, Enjolras would not have chosen the company of a demon, but if it had to be any demon, he was glad that it was Grantaire, as insufferable as he may appear at first glance. Besides, when you’d only seen one face more or less consistently for six millennia, you learnt to appreciate all its features. He would never admit it, but he’d grown exceedingly fond of the crooked way Grantaire smiled.

The Arrangement they had was very simple; there was so much willing and thwarting to do that one angel and one demon could not possibly finish it all themselves, so the solution was to split the difference. They were both of angel stock, after all, so it only made sense to help the other out. Each would do their part to ensure that neither Heaven nor Hell really won anything, but were quiet enough about it that the two sides didn’t ever realize they’d lost anything.

They did their part in other ways, too. Occasionally a town Grantaire had grown attached to might be cured of a mysterious disease, or one of Enjolras’ political enemies might declare a sudden and swift change of heart on a matter of state. They didn’t mention those, or speak of them aloud, but they did not go unnoticed.

The Arrangement did not include the occasional lunch together, but they took it all the same, more often than not at the Café Musain.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a year ago, eileen slytherout and i co-created this au. we planned, we plotted, i wrote, she edited, we became friends, we moved on, our baby was left to attract dust. i've finally come back to it, now, three days from #eileenden2k14, when we'll meet in person for the first time. it's been a beautiful ride :')

**Author's Note:**

> i have no one to blame but myself (and eileen slytherout for putting ideas into my head), but it's nice to know i’m accountable for my own vague (but quick) saunter downwards.
> 
> EDIT JAN 19 2015: revamped


End file.
